Opinion

Money laundering had its origins with crime syndicates. Former SLED chief Robert Stewart said that one of the dangers of South Carolina’s legalization of video poker was that it provided a state-wide network of money laundromats.

Eight years ago, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated that we would have to pass the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in order to figure out what was in it. Thanks to that irresponsible logic, the American people were forced into a healthcare system that is unable to keep the promises on which it was sold.

There are three things that can make my eyes leak at a drop of the hat: suffering, beauty, and the Olympic Games. And the Rio Games has been a combination of all three with some of the most gritty and glorious performances I can ever remember.

Many, if not most, South Carolina state lawmakers have a peculiar understanding of the separation of powers. For them, the principle seems to mean that all powers should be removed from the executive and judicial branches and concentrated in the legislature.

If more money were the answer to the state’s infrastructure woes, the topic would hardly be worth debating. The real trouble with South Carolina’s roads, though, isn’t a lack of money. It’s a lack – indeed, a total lack – of citizen control or influence on road funding. How do we know more money won’t produce better roads?

Paul’s mother, Christine, left us on Thanksgiving Day but it is not the devastating, “this will ruin every Thanksgiving from now on,” grief one might suppose. She had been, quite literally, dying to go for the last couple of years.